By the early 13th century the use of seals in Northern Europe was a generalized phenomenon which involved society as a whole crossing boundaries of gender age religion and social and professional status. The function traditionally ascribed to seals is the validation of the documents to which they were affixed but the phenomenon has far wider implications as is brought out in this collection of studies by Brigitte Bedos-Rezak. In itself a seal could serve as a quasi-amuletic object or a personal adornment the image impressed from it functioned as a sign conveying identity and power and the ritual of sealing provided an occasion for the affirmation of status. In her work the author has aimed to use the approaches of statistics cultural and womenâs history and semiotics as well as the âtraditionalâ skills of art history law and diplomatics to show the numerous surviving seals can be used to reach into the history of the Middle Ages and at the same time to explore and test the interpretative models suggested by semiotics and postmodern theories on symbols representation and meaning. Language: English